


Come here (touch me)

by 22amillion



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:07:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27898024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/22amillion/pseuds/22amillion
Summary: As a general rule, Adam has always been more tactile than Fergus.
Relationships: Adam Kenyon/Fergus Williams
Comments: 7
Kudos: 56





	Come here (touch me)

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Yes, the title is from a Depeche Mode song.  
> 2\. This is absolutely me channeling my 2020 touch starvation through Fergus. I have kissed ZERO girls this year and this is what happens.  
> 3\. Fergus listens to Mumford & Sons because I listen to Mumford & Sons, and before you accuse me of not seasoning my chicken you should know that I've got those Meditteranan spices so deal with it.

As a general rule, Adam has always been more tactile than Fergus - a reassuring hand on his shoulder after a difficult press conference, sorting out Fergus' tie for him, uneven because he was running late that morning, picking fluff or pieces of loose thread off of Fergus' suit. Adam can compartmentalise these touches - reason with himself that they were necessary, that he can't let Fergus go out in public looking like a man even less able to dress himself than run the country, but somewhere in the back of his mind he's aware that the way he interacts with Fergus sometimes can't be reasoned away. Truthfully, it's not strictly necessary for Adam to gently manhandle him as he passes behind, to walk so close to him, to brush his hand against Fergus' in the back of the taxi when he's less drunk than he's pretending to be. 

At first, Fergus had been resistant to these touches; he'd tense up whenever Adam would lay a hand on his shoulder, stare stoically over Adam's shoulder as he fixed his tie, give Adam a nervous smile before pulling his hand away in the back of the cab. It's not borne from any fault of Adam's - it's just that Fergus has never been particularly tactile. Awkwardness has always come so naturally to him that it almost acts as a safety net. 

Gradually, as the years progress, Fergus finds himself touching back; there's moments where he catches himself resting his hand on Adam's arm as he peers at something over his shoulder, instinctively leaning closer to him when they're sat side by side, laying a restraining hand on his thigh under the table when he's close to boiling over at Terri's incompetence. Eventually they build up a kind of intimacy that Fergus' has never experienced with anyone else - it almost suffocates him when they're alone together, and Fergus is desperate to reach out and pop the tension, but he just doesn't know how, not after all this time, so he consigns himself from watching from afar and trying desperately not to do anything that will give the game away. 

It doesn't help that Fergus' relationships are few and far between; his last proper boyfriend had been at University, a slightly snobbish History student called Andrew with a penchant for talking too slow and kissing too fast. The stretching landscape of his love life has been sparsely populated with the occasional fumbling one night stand with people he can no longer remember the names of, a civil servant called David that he had 3 dates with over the space of a month before calling it a day and Adam, who Fergus has now begrudgingly added to the category of 'relationship' in lieu of having to think too much about what Adam really means. 

This lack of intimacy has culminated in Fergus reacting almost embarrassingly when Adam touches him. Sometimes Adam will rest a hand on Fergus' wrist when he's making a point while they're sat side by side writing up policy ideas, and Fergus has to mentally chastise himself for the rise in his heartbeat, so internally angry at himself for acting like someone from a Jane Austen novel that he misses whatever scathing point Adam is making about Peter oppressing the poor. 

Fergus is unaware of the war that is equally waging itself in Adam's head; how he stashes away all of the little touches in his mind, looks back on them when he's alone, wonders how far he could push the boundary before it breaks. Adam is generally more clued in than Fergus; he catches him looking sometimes, wonders desperately if there's any way to break through the stalemate that seems to have been built up between them, or if he's resigned to picking lint off of Fergus' suit before he dies a lonely and sexually frustrated death. 

On Adam's birthday the stalemate finally breaks. 

When Fergus finally arrives at his party, Adam is three sheets to the wind and more than a little rowdy. Fergus steels himself as Adam throws an arm around him, leans close to him and asks “The usual?” into his ear. Fergus gives him a smile in response, already too hot and feeling the beginnings of a pressure headache spreading across his temples. There's about 50 of them all crammed into the local, and there's garish pop music playing from the speakers in the corner - just one of the pitfalls of asking Adam's nephew to control the music. 

Fergus spends most of the party nursing his drink in the corner, watching Adam as he parades around in his drunken joy, his present burning a hole in Fergus' pocket. The gift, a classy silver watch complete with a dark leather strap, has been playing on Fergus' mind ever since he bought it 3 weeks ago. On the back of the watch face, engraved, is the date that Fergus won his seat back in 2010 - almost too sentimental for Fergus to bear, and the product of a decision made late one night, tired, tispy and, predictably, thinking about Adam. 

Fergus takes the opportunity to make his move after Adam finishes a conversation with an old school friend - extracting himself from his seat in the corner, Fergus makes his way over to him, laying a hand on his shoulder and shouting “I have something for you!” over the blaring music.  
“What?” Adam shouts back, considerably less drunk than before but still swaying slightly on his feet, grinning freely at Fergus.  
“I have something for you!” Fergus repeats, and Adam shakes his head, mouths back “I can't hear you” before taking Fergus' arm and leading him through the back into a dingy storeroom. 

The cold air is a welcome change from the overheated stuffiness of the pub on Fergus' face - he tries to focus on the light breeze blowing in from the door at the back, finding himself, characteristically, feeling rather nervous.  
“I've got- I wanted to give you this,” Fergus stutters out, wrestling with his coat pocket to extricate the present. “It's uh… well just. Just open it,” he says, and panics when Adam starts to do just that. “I just wanted to say thank you. For. You know…” he trails off as Adam flips over the watch and reads the engraving. 

There's a moment of silence as Adam takes in the date on the back of the watch face. Fergus' stomach swoops and he feels slightly as if he's fallen off a cliff, and then Adam has him up against a barrel of god-knows-what and he's kissing him. 

Adam doesn't hold back - Fergus finds himself moaning around Adam's tongue in what feels like a couple of seconds, but Fergus doesn't really have a grasp on the theory of linear time at the moment, doesn't even really remember where he is, just knows that he really wants to keep kissing Adam. Adam's hands are heavy against Fergus' waist, embarrassingly quickly making Fergus feel very weak in the knees, and Fergus winds his hands through Adam's hair, tugs slightly too harshly, is rewarded by Adam groaning into his mouth-

And then he's being pushed away. 

“Fuck,” Adam says shakily, dragging a hand over his mouth, Fergus still breathing heavily up against the barrel. “That wasn't- that's not supposed to happen. That's-” he stops, stares at Fergus, looks away. “I need- I need to get back. To…” and then he turns on his heel, and he's gone. 

Fergus picks up his stomach from the floor, tries to channel what's left of his dignity back into his posture, and leaves out the back door, trying very hard not to think about the all-encompassing sense of impending doom that follows him in the taxi on the way home. 

-

When Adam lets himself into Fergus' flat the next evening, he's fully prepared to either have to fight or to grovel. What he doesn't expect is to find Fergus sat on the floor, leaning against the sofa and looking downright miserable, swaying slightly to the soft notes of a guitar ringing out across the room from the speaker in the corner. 

“Oh Christ,” Fergus says as he clocks Adam, but there's no anger there. If anything, Fergus' voice is filled with a quiet resignation - as if he's waiting for Adam to shoot him down again, and it fills Adam with a sense of immeasurable guilt that twists in his stomach. 

Crossing the room, Adam sits down softly next to Fergus, suddenly at a complete loss as to what to say, thrown by the lack of shouting that he'd steeled himself for during the drive over. There's about a minute of tense silence, until Adam speaks up. 

“Is this Mumford & Sons?”  
Fergus shoots him a disbelieving look. “If you've really come all this way just to judge my music choices you can-”  
“No no no no, no I'm not…” Adam drags a hand down his face. “That was a bad opener,”  
Fergus scoffs.  
“Look. I'm not- I'm not good at all this, I…” Adam shifts uncomfortably where he's sat. “Last night was-” Fergus is staring at him, and Adam deflates like a sad party balloon, all the air rushing out of him in a woosh.  
“I'm scared of what this is,” Adam says slowly, voice low and determined, like he's trying to spell it out for himself. “Because if it goes wrong, it will ruin my life. And yours too, probably,” he adds as an afterthought. “And I care about you too much for that to happen. So…” he trails off, unsure of where to go from there. 

Fergus is still staring at him, but there's a slight level of hopefulness that has started to creep into his features. “Well then,” he says slowly. “We make sure it doesn't go wrong,”  
Adam looks at him, looks at the softness of his face, the edge of desperation in his eyes, and the heaviness of the last four years comes crashing down around him - four years of late-night policy planning sessions, of falling asleep on each other, of laughing harder than he ever has before in his life, four years of Fergus, and it's all he can do to give in to it, to nod and let out a breathy assent as he tries not to fall apart. 

Fergus smiles and his eyes flit down to Adam's wrist, and Adam watches the emotions play out on his face as he takes in the metal and leather wrapped around Adam's arm. 

“You're wearing the watch,” Fergus says, voice almost reverential, and Adam thinks, enough. 

He leans over and kisses him messily, presses forward until Fergus is flat on his back against the floor, Adam a firm weight on top of him, their legs tangled together. The feeling of it travels down Fergus' spine, settles itself somewhere near his lower back, and he feels hopelessly vulnerable, highly strung, his breath coming out shakily into Adam's mouth.

Fergus can feel precisely every point of contact between them, the warmth of Adam seeping through the layers of clothing, the feeling of his hands running down his sides, and Fergus is aware that he's trembling slightly as he slowly reaches a hand up and threads his fingers through Adam's hair as he kisses him.

Adam pulls back and looks down at him, his eyes dark and half-lidded, staring unfocused at Fergus' mouth. Gradually, Adam's brain seems to catch up with the rest of him, and his face takes on a slight edge of concern as he takes in Fergus' compromised state.  
“You're shaking,” he says worriedly, “Should I-” Adam goes to move back and Fergus' instinctively tightens his arms around him and lets out a slight noise of desperation. His breathing is still shaky, and he doesn't know what he wants - knows even less how to ask for it - so he just settles for breathing out the word “Adam” and hoping that he somehow takes the hint.

Adam rolls them so they're laying on their sides, face to face, legs still entangled. The air stills around them, morphs into something quiet, less frantic than before but just as intense, and Fergus still feels horribly exposed, Adam's eyes travelling over his face, a soft smile affixed to his lips.

Fergus opens his mouth, goes to say something - although what, he's not entirely sure - but Adam stops him, shakes his head, lays a hand gently against his chest, his fingers softly splayed against the v of skin between the opening of Fergus' shirt and the hollow of his throat. Fergus swallows and raises an unsteady hand to rest it against Adam's cheek, strokes down the edge of his hairline, traces the pads of his fingers over the scattering of freckles on Adam's face, and only half-succeeds in his attempt to not make an embarrassing noise when Adam traces a thumb over his bottom lip. 

“Do you think you could turn that off now?” Adam whispers, grinning slightly, and Fergus registers distantly that the song in the background has switched over to something akin to 80 banjos being dropped down a flight of stairs. Fergus smiles against Adam's thumb, rolls them over so he's laying on top of him, and in an impressive display of both agility and multi-tasking, manages to reach for the remote whilst also licking into Adam's mouth. Unfortunately, this newfound dexterity crumbles in the face of Adam shoving his hands up Fergus' shirt and raking his nails down his spine, and Fergus somehow accidentally hits the volume button rather than the off button, resulting in a desperate struggle to control what sounds like an almost violent guitar-based hate crime now blaring out of the speaker at full volume. Fergus has the propriety to look sheepish, but Adam is laughing, and then Fergus is laughing, and this is it, Fergus thinks to himself. No more one night stands, or half-hearted first dates, this is it. Just him, and Adam, like it has been for the past four years. And then Adam succeeds in turning the speaker off, and he doesn't think much more after that.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @ferguswilliams, where I can't promise that you won't regret following me.


End file.
